Revolt Against the Modern World By Julius Evola Original Italian Edition 1934 Revised 1951, 1970 Inner Traditions International 1995 (Translation by Guido Stucco) 375 Pages, $29.95 ISBN 0-89281-506-X

Summary & Notes on the Author Traditional Spirituality State, Kingship, Empire Castes and Traditional Economics Traditional Time and Space Historical Decay A Mythological World History Degenerate Religions The Decline of Antiquity Church versus Empire The Post-Medieval Collapse The End of this World A Critique and Anathema

Church versus Empire After the Roman Empire fell, Christianity long prevented European man from taking the spiritual path of action, which would have been most congenial to him. Meanwhile, western man's active nature prevented the Church from creating a genuine priestly civilization. The Byzantine imperial idea did take the traditional archetype of the sacral empire to new heights. Still, however solar the Byzantine theocracy might have been in theory, the crepuscular society on which it rested could not sustain it. That which is traditional in Catholicism is not Christian. Catholicism has always been an essentially southern, lunar religion. The history of the Middle ages runs like this. The Carolingians still ruled the Church, like their Byzantine contemporaries. Then the Church became the equal of the Holy Roman Empire. Finally, the Church tried to effect an inversion of their proper relationship. The pope tried to seize both of the “two swords.” The ideal of the Guelph party, of the pro-Church faction in the struggle between Church and Empire in Medieval Italy, was essentially a gynaecocracy. The opponents of the Guelphs were the Ghibellines, whose pro-imperial ideology was briefly triumphant. At the height of the Ghibelline phase of the empire, both the Empire and the Church were seen as equally divine institutions. In legend, at least, the emperor was linked to the esoteric notion of a hidden World Ruler. Prester John, a medieval version of the King of the World, is said to have given Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II a magic ring that afforded invisibility, immortality and victory. Chivalry was for the empire what the clergy was for the Church. The knights of the empire constituted a warrior caste, in defiance of Christian morality. The Crusades had an esoteric dimension. The movement to Jerusalem was a movement away from Rome in more than a geographic sense. Something unchristian was always at work underneath the Christian surface of knighthood. Knighthood originally was a universal ordination. Knights even ordained each other, before an ecclesiastical ceremony was devised. Even then, the knight's promise to defend the faith was a symbolic expression of the intention to turn toward an a-Christian transcendent. The chivalric cult of love expressed a devotion to Sophia (which might be evoked by an actual woman, of course). To die for Sophia was to achieve immortality. Evola does not doubt that the Templars, as their enemies charged, were required to acknowledge that Christianity was not salvific. It is significant that only in the High Middle Ages does the cult of the Grail emerge. This was a real departure from primitive Christianity. Before its association with the cup used at the Last Supper, the Grail was originally a “luciferic stone.” When it was found, a realm could be restored and a king could be healed. This story of quest and restoration was closely associated with the imperial ideal. Evola does not like any form of the dialectic, but in this one instance he allows that the tension between Church and Empire was fruitful. In fact, both began to decay when they gave up their pretensions in each other's sphere. As early as 1338, consecration was declared to be no longer necessary to create an emperor. Once the Empire ceased to be sacred, it ceased to be the empire. The emperor became just a hegemon, if he was lucky. Often he wasn't. In due course, the Empire broke apart into national imperialisms. Next

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Copyright © 2002 by John J. Reilly